“She’s not in either room. She’s not in the common room on any floor. Are there any other rooms she has a key to?” She looks at each of the men in turn.

“Why am I a suspect?” Justin says.

“It’s not funny,” Karo says. “What if she went outside?”

“Why would she go outside?” Justin stomps a foot heavily into his boot. “To make sure the wasteland is still intact? To play damsel in distress?”

“Her coat is still—” Maeve starts, but Dan speaks over her.

“She sleepwalks sometimes.”

Karo’s face stiffens, but she doesn’t turn or acknowledge him. To Justin: “She smokes,” she says tautly.

There’s a moment when no one says anything.

“Even if she did go out, Nielssen screwed up the lock,” Dan says. His voice is calm and even, meant to restore order. “I looked at it yesterday afternoon, couldn’t fix it. You wouldn’t have any trouble getting back in.” But he’s already on his feet. “Right. For once, we split up—everyone take a floor, that way there’s no possibility of missing her. Meet back here in twenty.”

Maeve takes the back stairwell on her own, the soft clang of her footsteps echoing against the walls. It’s quiet and she wishes she’d thought to check for Anna’s bag when she was still up in the room, her cigarettes, any hint of where she might have gone. It crosses her mind, briefly, that this might all be a game: hide-and-seek, a great joke on Anna’s part. That they will return to the lobby to find her there, feet up by the fire, laughing. Y’all need to lighten up.

She’s in the second-floor hallway calling Anna’s name when Sim comes around the corner from the other stairs. Before he can say anything, she holds a hand up and pulls back.

“Not now.”

He slows down, and then he surprises her.

“Of course. Maeve—”

She’s already turning to go but he reaches out and brushes her arm, gently, then lets his hand fall to his side. She looks back over her shoulder, wary.

“I wanted to apologize, actually.”

This isn’t what she’s expecting and it catches her off guard. She stays there, mid-turn, a protective stance.

“For last night,” he says. He comes a little closer, but not much. “I was drunk, and pushy. I was an asshole. You don’t need that.”

Maeve has an urge to scan the hall, to see if this is for someone else’s benefit. After a moment, she lets herself glance to her other side, but they are alone.

“It’s all right,” she says finally. “Thank you. Thanks for saying that.”

“Everything is—it’s just a lot right now, and I shouldn’t have pushed you like that.”

“Okay.”